Nigerian Army Disowns 'Soldier' Who Claimed Dapchi Abduction Was Staged

The Nigerian Army has disowned one ‘Sergeant’ David Bako, who claimed in a viral message on social media over the weekend that the abduction of 110 girls from Government Girls Secondary School, Dapchi, Yobe state, on February 19 was staged by officials of President Muhammadu Buhari administration.  

Sergeant Bako had confessed to being part of a 16-man team who rehearsed and hatched the abduction of the schoolgirls for a lump sum of N80 million. He claimed some top loyalists of President Buhari were part of the scheme.

However, in a statement on Sunday, Brigadier General Texas Chukwu, Army’s Director of Army Public Relations, said there was no officer with the name David Bako either as a serving or dismissed in the list of personnel of the military.

He, therefore, urged Nigerians to disregard the confession of Mr. Bako who also claimed he had traveled out of Nigeria to avoid prosecution on the account of his revelation.

The statement reads: “The attention of the Nigerian Army has been drawn to a news report making round on Facebook and other social media to smear and drag the Nigerian Army into politics of calumny by mischief makers, that one deserted Sergeant David Bako leaks how Dapchi Girls abduction was planned in the villa and executed with N80 million.

“The information was said to be provided by Sergeant David Bako who claimed to be deserted soldier and one of the abductors of the Dapchi School Girls.

“The Nigerian Army, therefore, put the record straight that it has crosscheck it records and cannot find anyone call Sergeant David Bako who neither serves in the Army, deserted or dismissed.

The Nigerian Army, therefore, disassociate itself with such fictitious report and request the public to disregard the confession made by the so call Sergeant David Bako who has not been in the Army at all.

“It is imperative to know that these baseless and inane allegations are not new in the cyberspace, knowing the fact that we are in the age of information warfare. Open Source Intelligence reveals that the website Dailyglobewatch.eu with country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .eu used in publishing stories is obviously fake and therefore not correct.

“Based on our findings the website was registered on the 14 of April 2017 and the last update was on the same date and will expire on the 14th April 2018, we are very familiar with reports of this nature and will advise the general public to disregard such claim and desist from sharing such information on the New Media as this is against the Nigerian Cybercrime Act 2015.

“However, it is really worrisome to the level at which some people could condescend so low to fabricate facetious allegation against the Nigerian Army and the military at large for cheap political gains or simply an act of pure wickedness, thus the public should disregard such facetious allegation.
“The Nigerian Army wishes to reiterate its commitment to remain apolitical and non-partisan in the discharge of its constitutional roles.

We would also like to reaffirm our unconditional support and obedience to civil authority as well as reassuring Nigerians that these Fifth columnists will not succeed in their mischief as they will be fished out and dealt with accordingly.”

Similarly, the minister of information, Mr. Lai Mohammad had dismissed the confession of the alleged deserter, claiming no such name exists in the Army database.

He said: “I can tell you categorically that this David Bako is fake. There is no such soldier in the Nigerian Army. There was no conspiracy anywhere. The intention of those behind the disinformation and fake news is to cause disaffection between Christians and Muslims, and between Southerners and Northerners.”